Bitmain and OMERS Ventures Invest $5 Million in OpenBazaar

In a press release, OB1 has said that investors in the round consist of global mining giant Bitmain and Canadian VC company OMERS ventures.

OB1 has adopted both an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and traditional fundraising to fund the OpenBazaar project. Alongside the new VC funding, the startup has plans to unveil its own token before the end of the year, as announced during the Token Summit in San Francisco last December.

OB1 says that plans are at an advanced stage to launch a version of both and mobile versions of the application to reach as many people as possible. The application will also allow users to trade with each other with ease.

Our plans for this year include releasing web and mobile versions of the application, as well as giving users new ways to trade with each other, such as making requests and buying and selling cryptocurrencies,

-Reads part of the statement.

The Google of the Decentralized Web?

The developing team added support for Bitcoin Cash and Zcash in February. This has raised questions on the viability of the startup’s upcoming token. However the company’s CEO Brian Hoffman, talking to International business Times, clarified that the goal of the company’s upcoming token is to address the pain points across the platform, and ultimately the industry. The CEO said,

You have this massive amount of content that people are just dumping onto the decentralized web or into OB and there’s no Google there to clean it up and serve it up nicely and organize it,

He says that the new token will allow merchants and advertisers to create compelling content and help in building a business. The press release stresses that OB1 plans to unveil a verified moderators program in the near future.

The project has been hailed as ambitious by several quarters in the blockchain and crypto industry and this could be the reason why heavyweights in the industry have backed the project with massive resources. The startup’s investors consist of some of the biggest names in the cryptocurrency industry.

Bitmain is the latest high-profile name to be added to the list which already consists of Andreessen Horowitz and angel investor William Mougayar. The entry of OMERS Ventures into the exclusive investors list shows how this project is highly-regarded.

CoinDesk reports that OB1’s ICO will be an interesting one as small scale investors are already asking when it will be launched. The great interest from the industry heavyweights mean that the startup will little or less to attract small scale investors when it finally launches its token sale.

Do you think OpenBazaar will live up to its expected potential? Is the increased interest in the project by the industry giants a sign that the project is a venture that is likely to bring in more value in the near future? Share your thoughts in the comments section.